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To: Bob J
You're sidestepping his point. Do all Jews, Hindus, Muslims, followers of all eastern religions, tribesman in Africa, Central and South America, Eskimos, South Pacific Islanders...not to mention the millions and millions of people who died before Jesus was born, do they ALL go to hell because they haven't or even had the opportunity to accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior?

By answering the question directly? I guess you didn't follow the link, so I'll cut and paste it for you.

"Outside the Church there is no salvation"

846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers?335 Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.336
847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:
Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.337
848 "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."338
I don't know how to make my (the Church's) answer any clearer.
402 posted on 03/30/2007 4:44:45 AM PDT by Aquinasfan (When you find "Sola Scriptura" in the Bible, let me know)
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To: Aquinasfan; Ken H
Aquinasfan;kenH My perspective as a reformed Protestant (not a Roman Catholic) is similar. We believe that there is no salvation outside Christ, and no ORDINARY salvation outside his Church, which we would define more broadly than the church of Rome. They believe themselves to be the one true church, and there seems to be a variety of beliefs regarding the Eastern Orthodox and Protestants and others. Some teach that we are a part of the true church, only schizmatics, kind of the way China insists that Taiwan is a part of Mainland China but just in rebellion. Some Roman Catholics have taught we are outside the Church itself and headed for hell (Canons of Trent seem to indicate this).

Protestants have had issues of exclusivity, as well, depending on who you talk to. Someone like myself says that entrance into the visible church comes from a public profession of faith, baptism, and submission to a local church of elders and/or deacons. This is the ordinary and expected path of evidence of salvation (Catholics put more emphasis on the virtue of the Church itself and tend to stress that the actual inclusion into the church has saving merit, if I understand them correctly. Protestants, including myself, disagree).

We do not know the EXACT final state of those dying in ignorance of the gospel, not how God will mete out Justice. He will be fair. Men will be judged BY HOW THEY RESPONDED TO THE KNOWLEDGE THEY HAVE, and the Bible is replete with two teachings:

1) Men know about God's power, justice, and character from nature and their own interactions with men
2) Men universally hate what knowledge they do have, suppress the knowledge they do have, preferring to believe lies rather than face their won cosmic vulnerability in light of future justice

Therfore, ALL men are both in need of the mercy of God and in rebellion against it.

The unspoken premise that continually recirculates and forms an undertone in your questions on this issue is that God is "unfair" in judging men. The plain truth of the Scriptures is that God owes sinful humanity nothing. We are cosmic rebels who defy Him and continually rebel against the knowledge we DO have,and He would be just, righteous, and good to permit all of humanity to pass into eternity validating our choice to reject Him. He did not send Christ to die because He OWED it to us. Had Christ died for only one person, and no offer of salvation was made to anyone else, it would be just, or "fair." You cannot make God to be in your debt.

The beautiful thing about the gospel is that God's JUSTICE is satisfied in that sins punishment is complete. God's good, proper, fair, and right fury at rebellion fell, but it fell on Christ. The penalty for universal treason is paid. It is also MERCIFUL in that it allows men a way of escape.

It is my experience that when this concept is an object of fixation for people, it is always because they have a low view of eternal cosmic treason, a VERY low view of the inherent majesty, worth and what the ancients called the "holiness" of God, and a rather rosy view of their own relative worthiness. Couple that with the universal desire to condemn God if need be to justify ourselves, and you have a repetitive complaint about the "fairness" of God in some abstraction, which provides me a way of escape, or, as Paul says "how then can God judge the world" (assuming He is "unjust".... from Romans 9)

405 posted on 03/30/2007 6:56:34 AM PDT by DreamsofPolycarp (Ron Paul in '08)
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